Gambit's Sick Day
by IndigoHopeful
Summary: A day in sick for the Ragin Cajun Gambit and an accidental visit from Rogue.
1. Chapter 1

**Guess what…**

I don't own X-men!! 3

**So here is what's going down…**

If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with my other one-shot story (which turned into a four-shot) "Rogue's Sick Day." This time it's the demon eyed Ragin-Cajun's turn to get some -cough- **"**_gentle_" bedside manners from Rogue. I can't promise how long it will be, whether it turns out shorter or longer than my other story, so we'll just see how it turns out and go -or not go- from there.

**Christmas special!!** I know, it's late.

**Time:** Harsh December month during a cold front. Christ

**Place:** Louisiana, somewhere deep in the bayou of the French quarter.

**

* * *

**

Prologue 

December 23rd. Rogue stared out of the bedroom window bored. School had just let out for winter break on Friday, and for the next three weeks, she'd be stuck at the mansion with little to no company. Practically every inhabitant of the X-Mansion was leaving for home tomorrow. Even Professor Xavier was leaving to visit Europe and look for any signs of his lost son.

Her room-mate, Kitty, tried to soften Rogue's bitter attitude suggesting a late night movie to celebrate not having school the next day, but Rogue refused to take the bait. Everyone in the mansion got on Rogue's nerves doing something, but the silence echoing through the mansion when no one was there was ten times more annoying. Even if an empty mansion meant not having Kurt around to teleport randomly in her face. She'd even miss Bobby freezing the bathtub when she walked out of the bathroom to get a towel from the closet while she left water running. She'd EVEN take seeing Scott and Jean together if it meant people being around. At least, if all of those things was going on, she'd have SOMETHING (however irritating it was) to entertain her.

"Rogue!" The southerner cringed as Kitty slammed the door, the happy-pixie girl didn't seem phased by the look Rogue shot over her shoulder from the window. "Rogue!" Kitty squealed again, "There's a new Christmas movie! It's about this dog who's owner is having a tough time dealing with the holiday season and…"

Kitty carried on about the movie, but Rogue was not listening, she turned back to the window and watched the snow fall. She loved and hated the snow at the same time. There was never snow in the south, the first time she saw snow was when she came to New York to join the X-men. When Rogue reached her hand out and let snow fall on her gloves, she could almost make out the different designs of the snowflakes. Even though she kept up her defensive front claiming that the snow was annoyingly cold, she would have been more upset if the snow had stopped.

But she honestly did hate the cold.

"Rogue!" Kitty shook Rogue's shoulder. Hard. Kitty had been in the middle of talking about how there were never any Hanukah movies when she realized that the southern goth's back was facing her. Kitty's words made as much of an impact as if Kitty had put on a push-up bra for her date with Lance. He never noticed, just like Rogue didn't notice a thing she had said.

"Ah heard ya!" Rogue said swatting Kitty's hand off of her shoulder.

Kitty snorted, "Like, no you didn't!" Kitty put her hands on her hips and pouted, "You act like you're so angry that you're gonna be left alone here, but then, like, you don't make any effort to hang out with us?!"

"Whai should Ah want to spend time with people who are ahbandoning me?" Rogue shot back getting up from her seat at the window and stalking out of the room.

Rogue didn't even know why she had done that to Kitty, she was only trying to be a nice friend. Why did she have to do that to Kitty?

"GIVE THAT BACK! IT'S FOR MY MOM!" Sam shouted interrupting Rogue's thoughts. She turned her head to see into Cannonball's room and watched as he chased after Bobby who seemed to have taken a carefully wrapped package hostage.

_And then again, whai do people have to leave?_

She stomped down to the rec room to mope by herself; might as well get a head start on it before everyone leaves.

Rogue stormed into the rec room, not bothering to turn on the light, not taking notice that when she threw the door open, it hit the wall and left a dent, not caring about anything but how angry she was. She threw herself into the semi-cushioned chair in the corner by the heater and blew her white bangs out of her face.

_Ah'm sick of being here ahlone on Christmas whaile everyone else hops ahro'nd happy. _She slammed her combat booted feet on the ground in a unnoticed temper tantrum. _Whai am Ah the one who's sitting in the dark ahlone though? If they're going to ditch meh, Ah should ditch them too._

The thought processed, but the meaning didn't hit her. Rogue sat in the dark moping still for ten more minutes swinging her feet back and forth and watching them in the dark. Her eyes widened suddenly and she bolted upright in the chair, SHE WAS LEAVING. Who was to tell her she had to stay? So what if she didn't have some mom or dad down south, it was her home, and she was going home for the holidays!

Before there was time for her to think of anymore options she was on her way out of the rec room and was yanking her backpack out from under her bed. Kitty would be taking a train, it left tomorrow at four in the morning. Rogue didn't understand WHY Kitty insisted on waking up so early, but Kitty claimed it was to beat traffic and get home early to see her parents. All Rogue had to say was that she was going with Kitty back home. No one in the institute would be up early enough to check if Rogue actually went with Kitty. She'd leave tonight and call the next morning when Kitty had already left; and no one could ask Kitty if Rogue was really with her.

Her head was practically gushing with happiness. She'd finally have get her own chance to enjoy herself. She WAS going to enjoy herself, she was going to feel guilty about leaving like that, she wasn't going to worry about getting in trouble.

She was going to be selfish.

…

But could she be selfish?

_Can Ah really do this?_ She wondered pausing her folding of a shirt. She crawled onto her bed, her shirt she'd been folding in hand. True, almost everyone would be leaving the institute, everyone was leaving for home, everyone had the right to go home for the holidays. She was part of everyone. The others had warm arms to be welcomed into by their families, she didn't, she just had the south. Why did she need to go down south so badly? She wrung the shirt, snapped it, and threw it on the bed disgusted with her own ideas.

"-Rogue?"

A knock on the door interrupted Rogue's small tantrum and she hid the half-way packed book bag behind her like a guilty child who'd been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. She sat up straight and looked at the door alarmed.

Beast stood in the doorway puzzled, but decided not to ask, "Rogue," he repeated, "we made some hot chocolate, you might want to hurry down if you don't want everyone else to finish it up."

She sighed and relaxed, slouching, "Thanks Mr. McCoy.." she droned kicking her feet over the edges of the bed.

The teacher examined her quickly, something told him this troubled teenager didn't plan on saying what was going on, so he gave a friendly smile and left.

Rogue waited a few minutes to make sure she wouldn't end up following her blue furred teacher down the hall and then left to drown her sorrows in hot chocolate for one last time around all of the craziness before they left. She dragged her feet and stared at the ground, slinking along down the hallway.

Wolverine, who had been on his way to yell at Amara and Tabitha to turn down the flaming Christmas music gave Rogue a passing glance and made a mental note.

Two hours later and Rogue was still in the kitchen stirring her cold and barely touched hot chocolate. Everyone had left to go to bed so that they could leave early to go their respective ways. It was 11:30 and her hot chocolate cup had a total of twelve spoons of vanilla in it. Everyone had been laughing and she had been so distracted with her own self-pity that she just kept adding vanilla to a cup of hot chocolate to act like she was enjoying her cocoa drink and to pass the time.

"What's the matter with you?" Wolverine's gruff voice growled over her shoulder from the fridge. He pulled out a coke, the hardest drink possible in a school of underage kids, and twisted the lid off.

Rogue sighed quietly and ignoring his question asked randomly, "Logan, doesn't it ever bother you being stuck here when no one else is here?"

_So that's it,_ he thought to himself, silently connecting the dots in his head quickly. "I don't stay here." He pointed out pulling a rolled up stack of papers from his back pocket about the latest security system for the school. He wasn't a counselor and didn't feel like being one, all she needed was to talk herself out, he'd been around kids long enough to know that.

"Yo're raight." Rogue resolved, to Wolverine's surprise, standing up and leaving.

He sighed and sat down in the recently vacated seat. He knew what he'd just suggested, he'd deal with it later, she was smart and he knew where the young girl was headed, she was going to be fine.

By 1:30 AM Rogue was waiting outside of a loading train waiting for her chance to sneak on. The train station closed at 8:00 PM, but to make a clean get-away, she'd need to leave THAT night, which led to her sneaking onto a freight train. She had been watching and listening to the late night workers for the past hour and had figured out which train was going where she wanted.

The loaders heaved the last box into the cabin and sighed patting each other on the back and getting into the forklift to get the last of the load. There was the chance. The workers left to go get the other boxes. Rogue silently dashed across the tracks and jumped inside of the train, hiding herself behind the boxes. The loaders came back and finished their job, another twenty minutes later, 1:50 AM, and finally, Rogue was going home.

**Gambit's Sick Day**

December 24th. It was cold, cloudy, wet, and windy in Louisiana. The north had obviously decided to give the south a "gift" for the holiday season; a cold front had swooped down south. Despite famous southern manners, no one down south was very happy, and didn't have much gratitude for the cold.

Gambit woke up in his old home hidden deep in the bayou of the French quarter of Louisiana that morning with a cold. He cursed and shivered as his bare feet hit the cold wooden floor and the floor replied back to him creaking in protest to his weight as he headed to the bathroom cabinet for some pain killers. His entire body was stiff and he ached all over, his head was about as swampy as the bayou outside, his throat hurt like he'd just gotten out of a strangle hold of some drunkard at the local pub, and he could barely breathe. Worse yet, he couldn't find the painkillers.

If he was still back up north with Magneto and the rest of those acolytes, he'd have to roll out of bed, despite his health, and prepared himself for a loonngg day of who the hell knows what. If he was still in contact with his _"family,"_ he'd have the maids of the guild's house shoveling medicine and soup down his throat. He wasn't in either of those places though, he was in his own old home, sick, and pain-killer-less.

Two Options:

-Go to the store to buy the damn medicine

-Stay where it's warm

With his cold, he really couldn't go without, his head was gonna explode otherwise.

He sighed and pulled on his usual clothing, his body aching with every move. He placed a hand on the wall and made his way down the dark the hallway, using the wall to steady himself. He stopped at the stairs, today, they looked twenty miles long, he thought to slide down them on the railing, but he didn't think he'd be able to balance himself in his state, so he trudged down them holding onto the hand railing for dear life. The torture didn't stop there though, Gambit still had to walk the three blocks to the closest drug store.

He shivered slightly and tugged the neck of his trench coat up as he opened the door slowly, only to be met with a blast of cold wind and rain. _Merde! _He breathed at the outside's first cold touch.

The walk to the drug store wasn't any easier than climbing out of bed that morning. He practically stumbled into the store coughing into his hand; not one of his best entrances. At the moment though, looking good was the least of his worries, all he wanted was some pain killers, cold reducers, sore throat pills, cough drops, and maybe some hot soup.

The truly amazing thing about Remy Lebeau was that even when he was as sick as a dog, he still managed to move around so smoothly, his wet shoes didn't even squeak. He moved to the medicine aisle quickly and stood behind some teenage girl without her even noticing. He wasn't trying to hit on her, honestly, he wasn't in the mood for it, she just happened to be in the way of what he wanted.

The girl infront of Gambit didn't think of a hand reaching over her shoulder like Gambit did though. She gasped and silently spazzed before her survival instincts kicked in and she grabbed the hand and twisted it behind the owners back. Gambit had to choke back a howl of pain and instead ground his teeth letting air out very slowly.

"_Je suis désolé de t'ennuyer_, I only wanted de medicine on de shelf in fron' of you," He said calmly, not even bothering to fight back, he just wanted the damned medicine.

"Oh, pardon meh," a familiar sounding voice and accent said releasing him.

As said before, Gambit really wasn't the most stable person right now, as soon as the familiar stranger let him go he stumbled forward and she quickly grabbed him again, this time hooking an arm around his waist to help him steady himself.

"_Merci-…Cherie_." Gambit began but cutting himself once seeing the girl's face.

"YOU!" Rogue shouted dropping her arm and stepping back. "You tricked meh!!"

Momentarily Gambit forgot about watched Rogue amused, "Abou' what?"

"You planned that!"

"Planned what?" He asked masking a slight cough and grabbing the desired medicine he'd practically wrestled for.

"Acting sick like that!" She hissed closing in on the space between them and jabbing a finger into his chest.

"_Chere_, I can guarantee, dat was not planned." He said too tired to even harass her. Normally he'd stop any time he got the chance, but he didn't have the energy, and that was saying a lot. He moved past her to the check out line, making a mental note to track her down when he was feeling better.

Rogue stood back and watched him as he moved, he seemed slower than usual, obviously, as a trained thief, he still managed to move gracefully, but he was LESS graceful. It wasn't how he moved that alarmed her, it was the fact that he didn't try to make any passes at her. None.

While Rogue was in the middle of a drug store's medicine aisle trying to fit the pieces in her head, Gambit was fighting against the cold wind to get home. Thankfully, the bad weather had chased everyone inside; Gambit knew a good number of people who would have loved to take advantage of his current state to get some revenge.

A few of his ex-girlfriends in particular.

Or Rogue.

Home was just around another corner, and through a trail in the woods, unfortunatley, all of the short cuts home were muddy. Gambit had as much as a snow ball's chance in hell at making it through the bogged over trails at the moment. Being a thief, and owning a home hidden away from the city had several advantages, he never had to worry about people finding him if he didn't want to be found. The ordinary citizen could get lost or so frustrated with his journey that he'd give up finding their way, and it was understandable, it was practically impossible to get to the house. Gambit had always taken pride in that, until now, when he was the one having problems. His body was like a limp rag, and the old and rugged road the walked on wasn't fun in his state.

When Gambit finally got home, he closed the door with a slam and fell against it, using all of his strength to stay standing. It was sheer will power that made his legs move all the way to the kitchen. His head was pounding and made it hard to concentrate on getting the child safe lids off of the medicine bottles. When the lid finally came off, he didn't even use water to get the pills down, he just popped them in his mouth and swallowed. Satisfied at last that he had made the trip, he fell into a seat at the kitchen table, laid his head down on the table, and let the Nyquil take over from there.

Twelve minutes later after had Gambit had fallen asleep, Rogue let herself into the old traditional colonial bayou home. Despite the house's size, it was easy for Rogue to find her way to the kitchen, all she had to do was follow the sick Cajun's muddy footprints.

* * *

So that's where things end for now. I'm sorry that it's a Christmas special, and it's going on after Christmas. There's a new year special inside too, so it sort of fits.

That's that, happy 2008.


	2. Chapter 2

How Rogue had ended up in Louisiana was a complete and catastrophic mistake…

It was all planned out! She had packed everything she needed away in her backpack, unfortunately, that was the problem: She had packed everything in that damn backpack. That damn backpack which she had lost escaping from freight-yard security.

Yeah.

The train ride, save nearly getting crushed by an unsecured crate once when the train hit a bumpy rail, had been going exactly as she planned. No one had caught her sneaking onto the train, and when security came around to check the freights, she'd been ready for it with her camouflaging black clothing. She had even managed to slide a few things around so that she could easily lie back on the floor and wait for the next destination. The only element she couldn't control was her fatigue. Despite her energy for getting down south again and home, being awake from 6:30 on was taking its toll on the stow-away mutant. She fought with all her power to stay awake, it was 3:23 AM and the train would be stopping in New Orleans for a small pick-up at 4 (she knew that from overhearing the conductor order the freight-loaders to leave space for a few extra items) before continuing on to Mississippi.

The fact that the wind outside whooshing through the cracks in the freight train door was such a soothing sound didn't help to keep Rogue awake. Neither did the thermal black trench coat she was wearing. And the extra clothes she had packed in her backpack made the bag a comfortable pillow.

Rogue did everything she could to stay awake. By the time it was 3:24, one minute after she had checked her watch, she had given up trying to keep herself awake by sitting straight up against the wall and moved on to listing all of her pet peeves, hoping that she could make herself angry enough to work up some spare energy. The first pet peeve listed was a given.

_One: Being at the X-Mansion ahn the holidays._

_Two: The cold._

_Three: When Kitty wahnts to stay up all naight after some __**ROMANTIC **__date with Lance._

_Fo'r: Having to share danger room sessions with Scott and Miss Perfect Jean._

_Faive: When Kurt ports raight in mah face._

_Six: Gambit._

_Seven: Gambit's accent._

_Eight: Gambit's cocky smahle._

_Nine: The fact that he doesn't give a rip ah'bout what people think. _

_Ten: The fact that he won't give meh a moment's peace when Ah'm ticked off._

_**Eleven**__: Even when Ah tell him to leave meh ahlone, he doesn't._

_Twelve: When Ah wahs sick, he came and ah'nnoyed meh._

That sick day. That damn sick day!! He just slipped into her room like it was no big deal. What even possessed him to make him think it was okay to just break into the X-mansion, let alone her room, and just hang around like there really WEREN'T people inside who would love to play target practice with his Cajun ass? Mr. McCoy even caught him and he treated it like it was no big deal and wanted nothing more than to just restart their interrupted card game.

That damn sick day.

That day.

That-

…And it was through all of that fuming and thinking Rogue had actually managed to tire herself out even more and fall asleep.

Unfortunately for Rogue, her carefully planned trip had taken severe bend. At 4:03 AM the very freight holding Rogue was opened up to load the extra cargo from Louisiana and the unsuspecting mutant jumped and alerted the loaders of her illegal presence.

The whole story from there was a mess. Rogue "gracefully" scrambled out from behind a crate but in her shock completely forgot her bag on the floor. Getting away from the guards was no easy task either- they chased her through the train yard, and then for another 5 blocks through New Orleans. (It would have been four if she hadn't accidentally stepped on some feral cat wondering around that same alley she'd taken refuge in and made it yowl.) After what seemed like an hour of playing cat and mouse, the workers gave up and the stow-away was free. Free to think about what the hell she was going to do in New Orleans.

After wandering aimlessly down the streets Rogue had already had enough of "The Big Easy" and was wishing she had a warm place to sleep. There's this old saying that talks about being up a creek without a paddle, right? That was Rogue. The money for the motel she planned to stay at was in her backpack, the mutant had but ten dollars in her pocket. The out of place mutant spent her night walking in light of the city aimlessly.

By the time it was ten in the morning Rogue felt more like a zombie. She'd spent the night trying to figure out what she was going to do. All she could think to do was call the X-Mansion. She was hosed. She had no money and no way of getting any. It was Christmas Eve and Rouge was in Louisiana, she was cold, hungry, and wanted nothing more than a cozy place to lie down and crash. As a last resort to stay awake before surrendering and calling the mansion, Rogue tromped into a drug store to buy something to wake her up. That's when she ran into HIM.

Remy Lebeau had always had been a secret object of Rogue's fascination. Not in the good way. She'd learned how to anticipate his every move so that she could figure out a comeback. So when Gambit appeared sick as a dog on that "fateful" morning without so much of a wink of the eye Rouge knew something was wrong. She had watched him stunned as he made his way out of the store and down the road (probably home) trying to figure out what parallel universe she had walked into.

That's when the idea came to her. Gambit was sick and needed some one to take care of him. Rogue was trapped down in New Orleans without a place to stay. Bingo.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gambit woke up to the sound of footsteps in the kitchen, he shot upright in his chair and grabbed the pill bottle off of the table and charged it.

"Relax," a some-what familiar voice said from behind him.

He promptly obeyed releasing his kinetic charge on the pill bottle. Part of him obeyed because he was half asleep, another part was because he was drugged up on cold medicine, and the last part just didn't want to lose the medicine and have to get more.

"Come ahn," Rogue said slipping an arm around his waist and then slinging Gambit's arm over her shoulder. He was heavy, and limp like a rag doll, but some how she managed to make him stand up with him leaning on her and more importantly, without risking any skin to skin contact. She doubted she could get him upstairs unconscious, in fact, she doubted she could even get him to the couch in the next room, let alone up the stairs.

Taking a moment to consider what her best option was, the couch or the bedroom up the stairs, she pulled the Cajun's arm tighter over her shoulder trying to find an easier position to support him. Rogue needed a place to stay, and Gambit needed some to help look after his sorry-sick-ass. If Rogue hadn't shown up when she did, he most likely would have fallen out of his chair and ended up with a concussion.

They stumbled up the stairs together. Gambit's head swam trying to figure out what was going on. He knew he just got back from the drug store, he thought he might have seen Rogue there too, but he was completely positive he was that he was sleep walking now. He felt completely limp and weak; Gambit could barely move his limbs farther than a baby step at a time. If some one had dangled a gold coin in front of his face and told him to take it, Remy doubted he could even reach his hand up to snatch it. His eyes kept fluttering open, but he couldn't keep them open for more than 10 seconds at a time. He could feel the sleep medicine trying to run its course, and he stumbled nearly making Rogue fall forward. Rogue's hand slipped down to Gambit's back end in the process. She quickly snatched her hand back, but the mistake didn't go unnoticed.

Gambit was positive, this was a dream.

But _merde_, that hand sure felt real.

The two-some stumbled and swayed from side to side trying to get up the stairs. The dream Rogue seemed to pause momentarily trying to figure out what door was to the bedroom. Gambit being the helpful gentleman he was made a slight directional move to tug Rogue to the right and she took it as a hint to choose the door on the right. The doorknob was a trick, it was old and the dream girl seemed to fumble with it clumsily to get it opened, Gambit reached over, tugged the doorknob out towards him and twisted- voila. He could hear and exasperated sigh of annoyance as dream Rogue pushed the door open and walked Gambit to his bed. She threw him off of her and he landed with and "OOF!" on his soft bed sitting up.

The two of them seemed to pause, both looking at his muddy shoes. Rogue was not a nanny and she was not about to bend down and pull his shoes off of his feet but still some one needed to. The drugged up mutant seemed to sense her disdain for task and lazily bent down and untied his own shoes. The dream girl stood there awkwardly watching him, when he finished, she stiffened up and looked him square in the face. It was like a rare moment of understanding between them, two enemie helping each other out on the holidays.

"Care to join me?" Gambit said in a husky voice with a cocky smirk on his face.

Or not.

She really hated him.

Too bad he was her only chance at a warm place to stay.

Resisting the urge to give him a hard shove so that he rolled off the other side of his bed (because in his drugged up state, she was sure she could do that) she turned toe and walked out of the room headed for the kitchen.

They both needed something to warm up.

Ahem… sorry.. it's been a while. .;;

I'm trying to upload this darn story but it's been a while so publishing has sort of changed since.. –cough- last time.


End file.
